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How Much Keyword Density Is Too Much?

Description: Keyword density is very important when you are creating content for your web pages. But if you include too many keywords you run the risk of being accused of keyword spamming. So how much is overdoing it?

The term keyword density refers to the number of times a specific keyword is used within a body of text on a web page. It is usually referred to as a percentage, which is calculated by dividing the number of times the keyword appears on the page by the total number of words in the piece. That figure is then multiplied by a hundred to get the total percentage.

But what percentage should you be aiming for? We know that if your percentage is too high you are venturing into keyword spamming territory, but if it's too low you won't achieve any decent results at all.

So how high can you - and should you - go?

Unfortunately this is one subject on which everyone has a different opinion. Figures of anywhere between 2% and an unbelievable 50% have been bandied about online, but as a general rule it's advisable not to go above around 3% or 4%.

A good rule of thumb to follow is to see how well your content flows when you use a certain keyword density. The more times you use your keyword the less impressive your writing will be. This is because you will have to start manipulating the text in order to fit the keywords in more and more often.

Your copy should always flow well and be readable and useful to anyone who reads it. As always, all the best SEO techniques remember that the website visitors are very much the priority, and while they are also designed to please the search engines it is the visitors who remain the most important asset.

As soon as you start playing around with your content purely to fit more keywords in, you are losing track of that fact, and you will start to run the risk of overdoing it with your keyword density.